


One Is Gone And Three Are Lost

by Phrenotobe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Beta OT4, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mentions of corpses, Multi, Platonic sibling relationship, Sadstuck, Things got kinda Real in here I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:26:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can’t fuckin’ believe this,” he murmured. To everybody else it was too quiet to hear, but he was talking to her, so she heard it loud and clear.<br/>“Dave,” Jade said tenderly, though he wouldn’t hear it, “You’re being a huge goob.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Is Gone And Three Are Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abyssalUpwelling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyssalUpwelling/gifts).



> This kind of started and kept running! I didn't know what you shipped, so I made it Beta ot4. Hope you like it!  
> I am sure things are inaccurate, but I'm not sure what tighter accuracy would serve.

Being dead wasn’t quite so bad, Jade thought, once she’d been divested of her mortal coil. There’d been some weird bits at the morgue - where they sewed more things up than cut them open, which was sort of the opposite to what she expected from that kind of place. She supposed it was kind of important to make sure everything was stuffed back in - not her, though.  
When it came to being a beautiful corpse she guessed she looked pretty okay.

It was weird again at the funeral home, where she just sort of hovered nearby, tugged uncomfortably around as her body was moved. She didn’t spend as long there, though she appreciated the comings and goings of everyone. A lot of the guests looked sad, but the people in the back rooms were pretty interesting, and joked with each other in between putting on gentle, reassuring smiles for their guests.

“Hey,” she said to her peers in the prep room.  
Unfortunately, they were all dead.

Her ability to move far from her body had gone before she knew it, an elastic band snap bringing her right back to her own body where it lurked ominously under plastic sheeting. Before she knew she’d miss it, Jade was hovering with a bunch of other dead people. Really dead, not hanging around. She wondered if it was something about how more and more of her was just kind of... gone. They were all older than she was, anyhow.

John had come to sort out the funeral arrangements for the body - her body. He brought Rose and Dave, too. She was resting on a steel table, and they’d pulled up the zip on the bag, to be nice. Dave excused himself and found the bathroom. He wasn’t sick, but he’d retched; she wanted to comfort him, maybe tell him to chill the fuck out, but he wouldn’t hear. She’d told John that taxidermy was soooo useless before she’d gone, but thought it was nice of him that he double-checked with the woman anyway.

Rose patted Jade’s hand. She’d waited until John was occupied and Dave was away. Jade didn’t really feel it - it was sort of like there was a very faint tap through miles and miles of cardboard and packing peanuts. Jade wondered if her grandfather had felt this way. Did it run in the family? Weird.

“I’ll miss you,” Rose said. Just like Dave, she almost cried but didn’t.  
“I’ll miss you too,” Jade said, and nobody acted like they noticed. John was talking to the person in charge, and his eyes slid over to Jade for a second, but he didn’t stop talking.

Jade sat at the foot of the table until the people from the funeral home came to pick her up. They were pretty quick in their movements, and it felt like somebody had grabbed the part of herself that she stood on that wasn’t precisely her feet (she hovered, mostly, so it was a weird metaphor) and pulled it really hard.

The funeral home people were given a nice dress for her to wear, and put her in it. It wasn’t her favourite, but at least it wasn’t black or a yucky color. She caught John and Rose arguing about it. He wanted to make it black. She thought it was nice that Rose stuck up for her, especially when she couldn’t say anything to make him listen.

“Okay Rose,” he’d said, “Since you’re just so fashionable and great at girl stuff, pick it out!”  
He was kind of mad at the time, and threw his arms up in the air dramatically and everything, but Jade guessed he was just sad. Rose’s eyes were very shiny, and her mouth twisted up and then pulled flat and thin; but then she nodded.  
“I’ll pick something she’d prefer,” she said, and turned away on a heel as quickly as she could.

Jade watched people put makeup on, to cover the way her face had changed after she’d died. It was kind of cool - she had dabbled with makeup, but not much. Then they put her in a box, and left the top open, for some reason.

John arrived early with Dave the next morning - they were dressed identically, like penguins.  
“They covered her freckles, man,” Dave said, when he saw her, “They covered her fuckin’ freckles, John, this is un-fucking-acceptable!”  
John glanced at Dave, and over at Jade’s body. His eyes lifted toward where Jade was standing at the end of the table, and he bit down on his lip. His teeth flashed out for a moment and then they were gone as he straightened and turned to yell down the hallway.  
“Hey!” he called, “Uh, hello? Sorry, we need a little help.”  
There was no sound for a little while, then an old, quite tiny and creaky man came through the door.  
“She’s in the casket,” he said, “Right there where you need her. What’s all this fuss?”  
He puffed the last word out through his mustache.

“Well,” John started, “Er, my friend... My sister. This makeup sort of... isn’t her. Can we get somebody to change it?”  
“Fuck,” Dave muttered under his breath. He stuffed one hand in his pocket and reached out to put his fingertips to her hand, tentatively. His fingers stroked down the back of her hand, folded over her chest atop the other. They'd left the freckles there, though they were a little faded underneath the powder to even her skin tone.  
“I can’t fuckin’ believe this,” he murmured. To everybody else it was too quiet to hear, but he was talking to her, so she heard it loud and clear.  
“Dave,” Jade said tenderly, though he wouldn’t hear it, “You’re being a huge goob.”

“I can’t do anything about that one, son,” the man said gruffly, “Makeup isn’t my department.”  
John put a hand to his forehead and groaned quietly.  
“I don't know what you're expecting from me,” the old man said, “But you have my condolences.”  
He tipped his head forward in a little bow; the shining crest of a bald spot came into view.  
“Jesus,” Dave said, his fingertips resting on the back of Jade’s hand, ticklish. Jade rubbed the back of her own ghost-hand, letting out a quiet Ugh. “Mary, Joseph, and all his shitting apostles this is the worst fucking farce in the history of boxing up a corpse.”

John pinched open the button on his jacket and pulled out his mobile phone, turning away from Jade and Dave and Jade’s ghost to dial someone.  
“Hi,” he said, “Sorry, I know this is the worst, but I think we need you.”

Jade moved over to listen, patting Dave’s shoulder as she went by. He shivered, like something wet and cold had gone down his spine.

“Of course,” she heard Rose say, “Is everything all right?”  
John hissed a breath in through his teeth.  
“I’m sorry Rose,” he said, “But they’ve messed up Jade’s makeup a bit and Dave’s in between crying and pissing himself about it. There’s nobody here to redo it. Could you...”  
“Yes,” Rose said, and her voice was kinda thin and wispy.  
“Yeah?” John said.  
“Of course,” Rose says then, “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”  
“Thanks,” John said, “You’re a godsend, you know?”  
Rose laughed, not a big one, but something quiet, like punctuation. Sort of a full stop.  
“See you soon,” she said, and hung up.

Jade went back to Dave.  
“John,” Dave said, “Why did this shit just happen?”  
John joined him, nudging Jade out of her spot and half-way through her own corpse. It felt really, really gross.  
“Oh my god,” she said quickly, and slid as fast as she could out of it. That was literally the most unappealing sensation ever. John’s hand reached over to pat the back of Dave’s hand. His fingers worked into his tight knuckles, opening them like a really stubborn daisy, and John’s hand grasped Dave’s, palm to palm.  
“I don’t know,” John said, “It was the ice, probably.”  
Dave stared really hard at Jade’s body.  
“John,” he said, “You fucking suck.”

Rose arrived shortly afterwards. Dave tugged his aviators off his face while John greeted her, and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles quickly. He had them on before John noticed. If Rose saw, she didn’t mention it, which Jade thought was very gracious of her to do.

“Yeah, it’s not a big thing-” “-Yes it fucking is, Egbert, don’t lie about it-” “A _little_ thing, but, well,” John managed with interruptions, “Her freckles...”  
Rose came to Jade’s side again, and stood for a long moment with her fingertips resting on the edge of the casket. Jade stood next to her, and looked at her face a little bit, but her hands said a lot more.  
“I see,” Rose said.  
“Can you do anything?” Dave said, both hands stuck deep into his pockets. Jade turned her head to look at him. His posture was terrible. He looked like a really depressed banana.  
“Post-mortem makeup is not normally my purview,” she said, glancing at him, but then looking back at Jade’s body again. Something in her face changed, and she looked sad. “But I can try.”

John came closer, to put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. He smoothed it down over her back, in a reassuring way, like how Jade would have done if she was there. His hand halted at the dip in Rose’s spine.  
“I know you can do it,” he said quietly, and kissed her cheek.

He turned away, grabbing Dave’s lapel to steer him out of the room. Rose and Jade and Jade’s body were left alone.  
Rose opened her handbag, a line appearing in her brows as she sorted through. She laid compacts on the thin edge of the table, and found a brush.  
“You look nice,” she said, softly. “Very neat.”

She took a moment to look at Jade’s face, and then brought out a pencil. She tested a mark on the back of her hand, leaving a small rectangle of hue, before tentatively putting it upon the makeup that was already there. Jade thought it was kind of cute that Rose hesitated before drawing another freckle, as though she was trying to work out where she remembered all of them. There were always slightly too many to count.  
Rose placed several across the cheeks lightly, lifting her hand occasionally to pause and reflect. It wavered a little, though she didn't draw any attention to it.  
“This is ghoulish,” she muttered to herself, “I’m sorry.”

She put more across Jade’s nose, and one extra one back where it really should have been, on the right side of her forehead. Jade watched her do it, and rolled up on her toes happily. It was nice that she got that one, even if it was a little too small.  
“That should do for now, I think,” Rose said authoritatively. She put the pencil down and opened the blusher with a click.

“Thanks for helping me,” Jade said quietly, because it felt kind of weird to have Rose touch her so carefully - not that it felt like much, but there was something - without saying anything. Rose didn’t hear it, and dusted off the powder into the lid.  
“I bet you think this is all ridiculous,” she said.  
“A little bit,” Jade said.

Rose put more blush into Jade’s cheeks - she’d always had it there anyway, and it softened the marks of the penciled-on freckles. She fixed it with yellow powder, patting the excess away gently with a little fuzzy thing and smoothing over Jade’s eyelashes with a fingertip as lightly as she could.

“You look beautiful,” She said in a breath, and then went very quiet. Jade tried to pap her shoulder a little, in case it worked this time, but Rose just twitched, her breath caught awkwardly in her throat, and pulled her jacket closer over as though she was cold. Her eyes were shiny again, but she still didn’t cry or anything.

Rose packed away the makeup things as quickly as she could, her movements sharp and sudden. She clipped the top of her handbag just as Dave came back in, turning his head left and right as if looking for other occupants of the room.

“You alright?” he asked.  
Rose nodded, but didn’t turn around, not for a few seconds at least. She pulled her handbag in to her waist and gave him a quick nod.  
“Yes,” she said finally, “She’s fixed now.”

Dave put a hand on Rose’s shoulder, and wordlessly brought her in for a one-armed hug. Rose’s hands slipped around his waist, meeting at the dip of his back. Her face hid comfortably in the crease of his jacket where the sleeve met the body of it.  
“Don’t get makeup on it, yeah?” he said.  
She made a tiny little croak into his chest.

“Hey,” he said, “Hey, okay, you’re iron. You’re steel, you’re, I dunno. Ebony and ivory and a fuckheap of precious metals, okay? It’s okay. It’s okay.”  
Dave put his hand to Rose’s nape, and waited.  
She didn’t make a lot of sound, mostly the smallest hiccups that Jade had ever heard. It made her feel really bad, on account of how she hadn’t really thought about this before, or what her friends would do. Who even expects to be dead at twenty-two? Being a silent observer fucking sucked. She couldn’t even punch their arms and tell them to cheer up, or maybe cry _properly_ like, well, proper crying people.

Rose and Dave broke apart very quickly when John came in. Her face was kind of pinched and red in strange places, but Dave’s jacket was completely unharmed.  
“Nice one, Rose,” Dave said softly, looking at her before he checked his suit, “Are you wearing vogue black magic on your face?”  
He brushed at an invisible speck. Jade let out a deeply-felt and disgruntled _ugh._  
“It’s Maybelline everstay,” Rose said, half-laughing, her face still crumpled and sad. She put a hand up to her face to check her makeup, and checked her fingers carefully for eyeliner.

“You look great,” John said, and lifted his hand to catch hers, “Kinda red but it’ll go away in the car. Is Jade okay?”  
Dave glanced at Rose, who gave John a thin smile.  
“Why don’t you look for yourself?” she said.  
“God, just tell him,” Jade said, folding her arms, “I am so super pretty it is unbelieveable!”

John ambled over easily, still hand-in-hand with Rose.  
“Wow,” he said, “She looks so nice. You’re clever, Rose.”  
Rose shook her head. Dave appeared on the other side of her, looming, like a deeply uncomfortable statue. His hand rested lightly and gingerly on her other shoulder.  
“Yeah,” he added.

Jade paced the floor, feeling a tug whenever she got to the far end of the room.  
“Could you all stop being so _sad!_ “ she said, throwing her hands into the air. They weren’t really listening. John pulled Rose under his arm and gave her a little hug, tugging Dave toward him by his jacket again and wrapping his arms around them both.  
“Jade wouldn’t want us to get all sad before the funeral,” he said, tapping his forehead against Dave’s with a quiet sigh, “Let’s hold it together for a bit longer. Just until it’s over.”

Dave grumbled into John's nose, and Rose stroked John's back, calming. Dave's arm came around from the other side, bumping the back of her hand and then hesitating, before coming to rest on it.  
“I feel kind of gay,” he commented.  
John nudged him with his nose, hovering near his face for a long minute before giving his mouth a daring little peck.  
“Yeah,” he said, breathing in finally, “Dave, you are so gay.”  
Dave huffed a little laugh.  
“Yeah,” he said, “Not as gay as you.”  
Jade moved a little closer, waiting a moment before filling in the gap on one side where she'd normally fit. The group quivered, as a whole.  
“Hell,” Rose uttered, “Look at us.”

They broke apart soon after that, and Rose brushed down the sides of her dress with her hands. It was time to get in the car and move up to the graveyard, but there was still one decision to make.  
“I hope you’re not expecting to ride with her, there’s no room for three,” the old man said, appearing again silently by Dave’s elbow.  
Dave cursed aloud, twisting around and backing away in surprise.

Rose glanced at John. John looked at Dave. Dave shuffled uncomfortably and looked at Rose.  
“I’m her boyfriend,” he mumbled.  
Rose lifted her shoulders in a shrug.  
“I was her girlfriend,” she said.  
“I was her best friend,” John added, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. The funeral arranger mumbled something surly into his mustache about the state of teenagers and society. Jade stuck her tongue out at him, and made a very rude gesture with both hands.  
“You’re everybody’s best friend, John,” Rose said, “But you were her brother, too.”  
“Family, eh?” the man said, “You’ve got the right, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”  
“Yeah, well it doesn’t matter I guess,” John said, “We said already that we’re carrying her, we can wait a car journey to be with Jade together.”  
The old man’s eyebrows lifted into his comb-over. He looked at Rose. She stared back at him. Behind her, Jade made another rude gesture.  
“It’s a pact!” she yelled, though nobody could hear, “We made it when Rose was taller than John, you bet she’s doing it!”  
John turned away to leave, without saying anything else.  
“You fucking know she’s carrying it,” Dave said, which sorta took the words right out of Jade’s mouth. 

Jade guessed that meant it was settled. She followed them as far as she could go, before things snapped back painfully to her casket. She sat on it after he closed the lid, and rolled her out to the herse.  
Rose and Dave had taken the car together. John tucked himself into the back of theirs, his hands braced on his knees and sitting ramrod-straight. Everybody was wearing a seatbelt. 

The ride up to the graveyard was the loneliest that Jade had ever felt. Every so often, she got little wisps of ideas from somebody in the car - they mentioned her, and she heard it. She couldn’t imagine that there’d be anybody else there, which would make things pretty quick.  
Jade started to worry about being left alone. 

The hearse pulled in ahead of the car. The morning was cold, but the grass was still green. Spring. Was it spring? Jade couldn’t remember, exactly. Late enough for ice. Early enough for grass and snow. 

Jade’s friends were waiting at the gate. She felt a disconnected surge of... something. Like pressure, or movement. An emotion? Feelings were hard without glands. The old man brought her coffin out smoothly, and motioned for somebody to help. John got there first, and then Dave. The old man gave Rose a steady look before gesturing to lift the last part of the weight. She slipped underneath, her mouth a thin line.

Jade was wrong about the amount of people there.  
There were ever so many people waiting, in rows and rows and rows along the pathways, spilling onto the grass in their shiny shoes. They all wore black clothes, and they all had different faces and different colored hair, but a good deal of them had something gold about them, whether it was their eyes, or a buttonhole flower, or the thin glimmering links of a watch chain. They dipped their heads in reverent silence as the funeral procession passed, and stayed that way even as Jade turned around to look on her strange perch.  
Her grave, as it turned out, was very far.

Closer they approached, and there were people dressed in dark greys and silky blues, and they too dipped their heads as she passed. Dave’s lips were pressed tight together, and his eyes were hidden behind his shades, barely-visible in the bright morning light. His head was tilted to the ground, watching Rose’s heels click neat and rhythmic on the tarmac. John was staring ahead, his face suitably clear and blank. 

Some of the people dressed in blue stared, stuffed their hands in their pockets, and fidgeted. Some of them were very small, no more than children. The coffin lurched a little as one of the four re-adjusted their weight, and they all breathed a long sigh of relief as they all fell back into step. 

The people nearest the grave never spoke. They carried their heads high, no matter their height or shape, and stared at the coffin with piercing eyes as it passed. They looked warlike and kind of angry. Jade felt like she knew quite a lot of them, but the sounds were stuck at the end of her tongue.  
When at last they could set Jade down, the priest in charge seemed to look at Jade; look at her as she stood and look right through her, too. He was dark-robed, dark-haired, sharp-featured, perhaps even a little wolfish, and he began to recite the eulogy in a voice that was resonant and sonorous. 

Jade swiftly tuned out; she went to stand next to John.  
He didn’t look at her, but one of his hands came out from his coat pocket to rest by his thigh.  
She touched it, and saw him shiver, but he didn’t turn away.  
Jade curled her hand around his. Her fingers went through a little, but she had more than enough time to work out what to change about it. 

Rose was staring at her feet, and Dave was staring at Rose, and then the priest, and then at the casket, and then over at John. John was staring at the sky.  
Jade decided to watch it too. The day was clear, and the clouds were thankfully full of nothing. No portents of the future sailed by - though, Jade thought dourly, maybe she didn’t have any more future to see. 

The ground lurched out from under Jade’s feet; dragging and pulling. She yelped, before she realized that her body was being put in the ground. Jade knew, on a basic level, that this was what it all led up to, but in all the confusion she had sort of forgot.  
“I’m not dead, fuckass!” She yelled to the priest, “At least not totally!”

She grabbed for a hunk of grass. Her hand slipped straight through, but stuck in the ground. _Oh,_ Jade thought, There are rules.  
“This is like the worst day,” she said, digging the fingers of her other hand into the soil for purchase. The tug was still there, but she could rest on the grass and watch when she sat up. 

People were grasping handfuls of soil to throw in; the first to do so was one of the golden people, an impossibly tall woman with sad eyes and a mourning veil. She stood up, her poise regal, and brushed the dirt from her hand with her thumb before turning away. 

There came so many others that Jade could barely keep track - solid, big-boned men who had delicate fingers, short boys and girls with wild hair and glasses, statuesque women and reedy youths and everything in between.

The priest finally closed his book, and tucked it under his arm. The visitors had left; golden to grey-blue and the angry ones, too. Experimentally, Jade stood up. She couldn’t go very far - most of the give in her movement was six feet underground - but she could stake out the rectangle at ground level in an okay way.  
“Please don’t go yet,” she asked her friends. 

Dave shuffled awkwardly in his suit, lifting one foot and then the other.  
“I’m freezing my balls off,” he announced, “I’m going to go sit in the car.”  
John nodded, tucking that one free hand back into his pocket to keep it warm. 

Rose paused, torn between the grave and John, who stayed very still.  
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, tugging on his sleeve.  
He caught her eye, and gave her a wink. She didn’t know what to make of it, and lifted her eyebrows at him.  
“I’m waiting for something,” he said.  
“Oh,” Rose said, fidgeting. She turned toward the grave again, glancing at it uneasily, past Jade’s legs without seeing them. Moments later she looked up, to see if she could tell what he’d been looking at.  
Jade rolled her eyes.  
“Go get warm,” she urged Rose, “He’s doing the pathos bullshit he started in ninth grade.”  
John shifted his shoulders into a shrug.  
“Dave probably needs to complain about his balls to somebody,” he said, “I’ll catch you up.” 

Rose frowned at him, but left, putting a hand to one shoulder to dig at the aching muscle on the way.  
John stayed there, quite smug, and waited.  
“Are you going to stick in one place all day?” Jade challenged him, hands on hips, “Geez, come on. Dave and Rose are wasting gas.”  
“I know,” he said.  
Jade pushed her glasses back up her nose angrily. Well, technically they weren’t her glasses, just a fake bit of memory in the shape of glasses, but the meaning was the same.  
“You mean you could hear me all this time?” she demanded.  
He nodded.  
“John, you are such an asshole.”  
“Yeah,” he said, “But I didn’t want to scare them or anything.”

Jade leaned against her own grave marker, because if she couldn’t, then who could.  
“What happened?” she asked.  
His nose wrinkled.  
“You don’t remember?” he said.  
Jade thought and thought. Her dress didn’t have pockets, which kind of sucked, so she fidgeted around with her hands a bit before resting them on the marker, hopping up to sit on it on a whim.  
“Uh,” she said, “Nope! Nothing really coming to mind.”  
“Oh,” he said, “Yeah, it was a car crash.”  
Jade scuffed at the ground with her foot.  
“Fuck,” she said loquaciously.  
“Yeah,” he said, “You should probably wake up though.”  
She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Seriously Jade, wake up.”  
“What?”  
The gentle thrum of the car engine ticked over, a vibration through Jade’s skull as she cracked open an eyelid blearily. It was midnight by the dashboard clock, searing green digital the only thing visible in the interior gloom. Outside, the neon strip glow of a cafe-diner with too-bright windows pressed itself into view, the rest of the car becoming more and more visible as Jade’s eyes got used to the light. A yellow streetlamp hung overhead, casting everything in shades of amber. John laughed good-naturedly, sitting back up in the driver’s seat.  
“We’re at the truck stop, I figure now is a good time to pee.”  
She grumbled quietly at him, slithering upright and rubbing her forehead where it had pressed against the glass.  
“We haven’t got into an accident, did we?” she asked, checking herself all over.  
“Nah,” he said, “Guess we’ve been lucky so far. You’ve been asleep most of the journey! Jet lag sure did a number on you, huh?”  
Jade nodded, her head still full of fuzz.  
“I’ll buy you some waffles,” he offered.  
“Sure, okay,” Jade said, as enthusiastic as she could muster. 

“Sup,” Dave said, catching Jade at the door, “Let me escort the lady to her table.”  
John called him a geek and went over to the counter. Jade pinched Dave’s butt to make him jump, and then graciously took his arm. He waited for her to take the seat before taking the one across from her.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” John said, appearing a moment later. Rose was next to him, in clothes that even after several years of not-monochrome, seemed uncharacteristically bright. She smiled, and Jade smiled back sleepily.  
The boys on one side and the girls on the other, they settled comfortably into unimportant conversation in a booth next to the window. 

"Rose, hey Rose, that’s the wrong ankle honey.” Dave said, mildly surprised. He reached for his drink, an eyebrow appearing over the top of his aviators before his grin vanished behind the rim of the cup. “ We need to leave this back in Alabama where it belongs."  
She reached under the table to take Jade’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Jade squeezed back, remembering the time on the table, unable to reconnect.  
“Sorry Dave, I was definitely attempting to catch John’s attention rather than engage in competitive toe erotics.”  
“You’re forgiven,” he said. John stuffed a chunk of waffle into his face before giving Rose an answering _mmmph?_  
“John, could you perhaps see your way to getting me a refill of this coffee?”  
He gave her a good-natured grin, pulling her cup over and tilting it to look inside before swallowing the mouthful and going again to the counter.  
“I think I had a bad dream,” Jade said.

Rose and Dave leaned closer, almost as one person. It was kind of creepy a bit. Rose squeezed Jade’s hand again, and Jade gave her a little kiss on the cheek, for reassurance.  
“I was dead,” she said.  
Dave pulled off his shades and laid them on the table.  
“Well I guess we all get those kinds of dreams,” he said, “Anything interesting pop up in your technicolor freestyle road trip horrorshow?”  
Jade frowned, because it felt like a lot had happened, but at the same time it was a rapidly fading memory.  
“Uh,” she started, “Well I woke up and I was dead I guess? And you all came to identify me and Dave got grossed out and nearly barfed. And then,” she said, pausing a little, frowning as she tried to remember, “Freckles. They put too much stuff over my freckles when they made me up for my coffin and Rose had to change it. That was really weird too.”  
Rose gave her an uneasy glance, and Dave slid his own cup across the table. She picked it up and took a sip, to do something with her hands.  
“It’s okay,” Jade said, lifting her hand in Rose’s on to the table and turning it to look at for reassurance, “John told me how I died.”

“I told you what?” John said, arriving late with a pair of coffee cups in his hands, “Wow, weird.”  
He put one in front of Rose and the other in front of Dave, shuffling up to Dave’s hip and resting his chin on his hand, with his elbow on the table.  
“Yeah, it was definitely weird,” Jade said, “You were really peaceful about it too.”  
John grabbed for Dave’s old cup and took a swig, shrugging.  
“Well it was just a dream, right?”

Jade lifted her fork, and nudged a piece of waffle around her plate.  
“I guess.”  
“Problem solved,” Dave commented.  
“Ugh,” Jade agreed, resting her head on Rose’s shoulder. Her perfume was calming, her hand was warm, and the people talking in the background were reassuring. She could almost fall asleep again, if she didn’t have food to eat and people to talk to.

She held out on it for another half an hour until she caught herself slipping into her empty plate. Rose gave her a gentle nudge, her own other hand resting in John’s strong fingers.  
“Do you want to go?” she whispered.  
Jade mumbled a yes.  
“Need a lift?” Dave offered. John snorted.  
“Your biceps are tiny noodles, Dave.”  
“Hey, don’t even start,” Dave begun. In between the waffle ending and the post-meal talk starting, he’d put his shades back on. Rose put a finger to her lips, her mouth twitching into a smile.  
“I can walk, guys,” Jade groaned, “Jeez, I’m just jet-lagged or something, it’s not like my legs fell off.”  
John stood up, and Rose too a moment later. Dave dragged himself along and dropped a neat amount of cash on the table before turning away, putting his arm around Rose.  
“You’re shotgun, right?” John said, “They’re going to be wired, so I’m gonna pull a double shift and try to find a motel or something.”  
Jade nodded, levering herself to her feet and following him out.

The car was much the same as they’d left it, but with a thin seam of slushy snowfall on the bonnet. John wiped it off with his sleeve, gesturing for everybody else to get in. Jade took hers uneasily, scooting around to check Dave and Rose in the back seat before plugging her belt in firmly.  
John slipped inside, putting the keys in the engine and turning it. It took three tries to make it start, and Jade picked at her fingernails nervously.  
“Hey, John?” she said casually, “Could you maybe put on your seat belt? I feel kind of weird about it.”  
He lifted his eyebrows, taking his hands off the steering wheel, leaning forward to check the time.  
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, and pulled it across. “Everybody else ready? Belt up too.”  
“We’re both tucked in,” Rose called from the back of the car.  
“Great,” John said. 

They pulled out of the car park and found their way back to the road they were supposed to be on with a minimal amount of bickering. The ride was mostly boring, right up until Dave started chanting a profane version of ninety-nine bottles, trailing off weakly after only thirty-two had been passed around. John rubbed his eyes and squinted; snow had started to fall again and the road was dark above the horizon, lights going by with a gritty fwoosh as other vehicles went past.  
“Yell if you see any places to spend the night,” he said.  
“You got it,” Dave said, “Between the white satan flakes and a thin layer of mirrored plastic, I will see the true way.”  
“You could take them off,” John said, yawning.  
Dave laughed.  
“And mess with my style? That’s like asking a zebra to stop being black and white stripes and just pick one. No, man, no.”  
“You’re so full of-”  
“Shit!” Jade finished off for him. A car further up the road had come down on the ice, twisting in a spin on the way. She reached for the steering wheel and yanked it hard, swerving the car off the road through the barrier into a snowbank as somebody screamed. The car behind them screeched to a halt and honked loudly, and the one coming at them smashed into the barrier and stopped.  
“Are we all okay?” Jade said, with rising panic, “Guys?”  
There was a series of mumbled agreements and oaths.  
“I’m fine,” Rose finally said, “For all our sakes, please get all the rest you require.”  
Jade laughed at that, finally, and wished for her heart to climb down from her throat.  
“Yeah,” she managed, thoroughly glad at the fact she seemed to still be around, “Okay.”


End file.
